of course i love “we shouldn’t be doing this” ellabs, but i entreat you to think about the marginally less popular, “why are we doing this?” ellabs.
they’ve fought, bitten, drawn blood, and still can’t find a way to make the parts of them that just want to belong to each other meet in the middle. but here they are anyway, broken hearts entwined in a mess of lips on scarred skin. cheeks wet and eyelashes clinging. a bone-deep guilt sinks in while ellie mourns in dutiful, almost urgent strokes of her fingers. they can’t be real, but how can they not be when it’s this good? it’s stupid how much she still wants it. she convinces herself the “it” she means abby’s release and that alone. abby lets herself get lost in the feeling of fingers tugging at her hair if it means she can entertain denial for an hour longer. ignores the bitter ache in her arm and coos filth to hopefully rid herself of the lump in her throat.
they can exhaust themselves like this, fall asleep side by side, but in the morning ellie will be gone like she always should have been. and abby will be just as alone as when she was still there.
Something that I really do appreciate about In-ho's characterization is that he is so deeply detached from both the world and his own emotions, but whenever he is genuinely being vulnerable on screen, he never fully breaks down, he never shouts, screams, or lashes out, yet he is so visibly emotionally fragile in his own way...
You'd think somebody like In-ho - a ruthless death game overseer who we have seen murder with zero hesitation on screen and who also has been complicit in so many horrific things with full volitional autonomy for years - would be completely and entirely devoid of human emotion, which he may be when acting as the Frontman... or at least, he likes to believe he is.
Dissociation and emotional and moral detachment is a very common trauma response, clearly that is the same case with In-ho. He started off as a victim, then became a perpetuator - spent year after year building walls around himself, walls that he'd never allow to break, isolated himself from his family and any regular human contact, never allowed himself to heal, open up or be vulnerable, and actively willingly performed as the leader of the same oppressing system he himself fell victim to all while adapting to a highly dehumanizing ideology to justify and rationalize the path he had taken, to justify the man he'd become.
He became nihilistic, desensitized and indifferent towards human life - including his own. His trauma? He never moved on, he never healed, instead he's suppressing it all and hides behind a mask, both literally and metaphorically.
But unfortunately, suppressed trauma never truly goes away - it just buries itself underneath and silently waits to finally break out. He may have been able to hide and suppress, but there will always be a breaking point, even years later. Trauma, especially as severe as In-ho's, is permanent, ever lasting, and so are his open wounds.
We have rarely seen him being vulnerable on screen, but whenever he was, his subtle showcase of vulnerability was always tied to his past - when non-fatally shooting his own brother and then having to confront the emotional consequences of doing so, when genuinely opening up to Gi-hun (while there was intented manipulation in mind, and while In-ho had to twist the narrative here and there, his tears were sincere. He is still mourning the loss of his wife and kid, even almost a decade later, whether he likes to admit it or not. In fact, it was most definitely the first time In-ho ever opened up to anyone in a very, very long time, considering he cut ties to his family and the only actual human contact he had were cartoonishly evil rich snobs and his fellow murderer coworkers who were just as detached as In-ho is, so he never had the chance of actually opening up...) and finally, him tearing up when Gi-hun didn't end up making the same decision as he did - the decision that ultimately sealed In-ho's path.
Again, his emotional vulnerability on screen is so subtle and brief, yet so very telling. In-ho's micro-expressions, him shaking, him barely holding eye contact (when In-ho was bringing Gi-hun's belongings to his daughter, the guy could barely hold up his gaze) his breathing is agitated, he tears up, but then subtly tilts his head to not let said tears fall as if he physically can't allow himself to actually cry and let it out. For someone like In-ho who spent several years suppressing his emotional turmoil, it can be very difficult to let it all out... so he refuses.
But still, there are a few moments of In-ho's vulnerability despite his overall detachment, even if they may be brief and subtle. And it all just makes him so... nuanced, layered, and most of all, human.
“Ellabs enemies to lovers where they’re intense rivals,” I raise you the funnier, and more accurate dynamic of “Ellabs but it’s Ellie’s obsessive, basically parasocial one-sided rivalry with Abby, who wonders why this random ass girl is looking at her like that.”
santa barbara ellie is peak. half dead, covered in sweat and dirt and a lot of blood that is both hers and other peoples, chanting abby’s name while she stumbles around gripping a gaping torso wound, abby shoulda married her on the spot
since you're forcing me at gun point to make a formal request, give me the vampire ellabs and make it nasty now! love you <3
──𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐓𝐇;
(vampire!ellabs | ellie/abby): abby has a nasty habit of running away when immortal life becomes too much; ellie knows exactly how to put her creation back in line.
wc: 4k | cw: dom!ellie, sub!abby, toxic relationship, established relationship, angst, blood, blood drinking, blood play, pain play (burning via crosses and silver), biting (obvs), fingering, orgasm control, choking, degradation, marking, oral sex, MINORS DNI.
note: this is the product of this tweet & all the times i've said louis and lestat's whole deal would be hot if they were lesbians instead throughout my life. also i have never written ellabs before so be nice to me or i WILL cry. mwah!
Abby stands in the center of what was once her home. The walls are still here, sure, still cracked with years of decay and scorched around the edges where the fire had licked them but it’s the quiet that gets her.
It used to be loud here. She had friends once. People who laughed in this space, leaned against doorframes while sharing cocktails, shared stories on late nights when the world felt a little softer. Their names come and go now, like water slipping through her hands. She wonders if forgetting them is part of becoming what she is. If memory loss is another kind of rot, a quiet one that eats from the inside out.
Her father's different. She remembers him. She fights to. His voice is still carved somewhere deep, wrapped around the way he said her name. She knows the color of his eyes. The warmth of his hands when he pulled her in, solid and safe. That warmth is something she reminds herself of every night, like a prayer. Like penance. It’s what keeps her tethered.
Colors are duller now. Sounds are louder than they should be. But she tells herself his laugh was real. That there was a time when she felt sunlight on her face and didn’t recoil.
Some nights it’s not enough. Tonight is one of them.
She hasn't fed. Not properly. Just a few rats cornered in an alley, their blood watery and unsatisfying, barely enough to take the edge off. She drank because she had to, because it hurt not to. But it didn’t make her feel human. Nothing does. Her chin and collar are still stained with it, dried and sticky. She hasn’t cleaned up. She’s just standing here, staring into the cold fireplace like it might light itself if she wishes hard enough. Like warmth might find her again.
But nothing comes. Not light. Not forgiveness. Not even the merciful God she'd heard so much about.
She’s packed a bag. Not because she has a plan, but because leaving feels like something. If she doesn’t move, if she doesn’t at least pretend to run, then she’s settling into this—this hunger, this cold, this monster in her skin. And if she accepts it, then what’s left of Abby dies for good.
Ellie finds her, of course. But can she truly be found if she wasn't really running to begin with?
"Why do you even bother packing," Ellie says as she walks in, not bothering to linger. Her tone is easy, like she’s commenting on the weather, not the ruins of a woman standing in the middle of her own history. “You know, you'd be a lot harder to track if you went literally anywhere else.”
Abby doesn’t turn around. Ellie crosses the room with a heavy sigh, a sigh one might reserve for a misbehaving child.
“I’ve given you eternal life,” she adds, stepping closer, “and you insist on squandering it moping.”
She says it like she’d offered Abby a gift. Like immortality isn’t a curse. Like she didn’t force Abby to wake up dead with a mouth full of someone else’s blood.
“Have you been eating rats again?” Ellie wrinkles her nose. “Abby, please.”
Then she’s in front of her, close enough to touch, and she doesn’t wait. She licks the blood from Abby’s chin, slow and idle like she’s bored but still enjoying it. Her tongue drags up with a kind of lazy affection that makes Abby’s skin crawl and shiver all at once. She doesn’t stop her. She never does.
“Do you really never miss it?” Abby asks, barely above a whisper. She watches Ellie’s mouth, the sharp cut of her teeth, the way her tongue stains red and leaves smears behind on her lips. “Being alive?”
Ellie’s smile curls at the edges, her fangs on full display now, gleaming in the dark. “No,” she says. “There’s too much to see. Too much to taste. Mortality would’ve made it all meaningless. But now? I have forever. I have you, forever.”
Abby’s resolve slips like it always does. Her hands find Ellie’s waist, and she fists the fabric of her jacket, like holding onto her might make it all stop spinning. Ellie’s mouth is already at her throat, lips brushing where blood still stirs faintly beneath the skin. Her fangs scrape lightly, not piercing, just enough to remind Abby that they could. That she could.
Then Ellie kisses her, and it’s nothing short of consuming. It's all hunger and desperation and decades’ worth of bitterness poured into the way their mouths collide. Abby gives in to it with a quiet sound, the last of her strength unraveling under Ellie’s hands.
Ellie always knows what she needs.
When Ellie finally pulls away, she's smirking. It's a look Abby's seen countless times, one that makes her feel like she's playing a game that Abby doesn't know all the rules to yet.
“We’re going home,” she says, voice rough and final.
Not a suggestion.
Abby doesn’t argue. She never does.
Ellie turns without waiting for confirmation, and Abby—tired, bloodstained, still aching with a hunger she won’t admit—grabs her bag and follows. She slings it over her shoulder and steps over the threshold of her old life with barely a glance back. She tells herself it's easier this way. That she has nothing left to cling to here.
It'll keep her away for a while.
They don’t speak on the way. Ellie walks ahead, lithe and confident, the night bending around her like it knows what she is. The shadows part for her and close behind her, and Abby wonders—as she often does—what might’ve happened if she’d run faster. If she’d told Ellie no the first time. Or the second. Or the third.
But she didn’t. And now Ellie is carved into her like a second skin.
The manor rises out of the fog like something out of a storybook. Massive and silent, tucked deep in the woods, its spires and stonework cloaked in ivy. The windows glow faintly from the sconces burning inside, their golden light spilling into the trees like a promise or a warning. Abby swallows the lump rising in her throat.
It had taken her breath away the first time she saw it.
Back when she still had breath to lose.
Back when Ellie was just a charming, cross-dressing woman who quoted Shakespeare with a grin and tipped too much at the opera house bar. Abby had thought she was eccentric. Arrogant. Undeniably magnetic. She’d watched her from across the mezzanine and wondered what it might be like to peel back the layers and find the softness inside.
Abby had been like that, too. Once. She owned a club, played the piano until her fingers ached, laughed and partied through the night. She'd had no shortage of fans and suitors, but no one had ever been like Ellie.
The manor is beautiful. It always has been. High ceilings. Velvet drapes. Cold marble floors that echo underfoot. Oil paintings in every corridor, all framed in gold. A library that smells like dust and candlewax and old, dried blood. Ellie’s taste is impeccable, her wealth impossible, and Abby her pretty pet to bring it all together.
She hadn’t known it then, of course. She was just drawn in by the spectacle. The way Ellie filled a room. The weight of her gaze. The way she seemed to know things about Abby without being told. And maybe she should’ve realized what that meant. Maybe she should’ve seen the warning signs in the opulence and the perfect smile and the way Ellie always had the last word.
But it had taken one long weekend. One whirlwind visit. One stolen kiss and one bloody night. And by the time Abby understood what Ellie was, it was already too late.
Now, as they pass through the tall double doors, Abby looks around the entryway and feels her stomach tighten. It’s exactly as she remembers. Not a thing out of place. Everything polished. Everything immaculate.
She steps inside anyway.
Because she still doesn’t know how to say no.
─
Abby’s wrists strain against the chains bolted to the headboard. She’s not pulling hard. Not yet. But the weight of them presses against her skin like judgment. Her arms are stretched above her head, her body laid bare save for her underwear, the white cotton damp at the seam and clinging to the soft swell between her thighs. Her breathing is uneven. Shallow. Her chest rises and falls in sharp little stutters despite not needing to at all.
It's part performance and Ellie loves a performance.
Ellie stands beside the bed, fully dressed in black slacks, boots polished to a mirror shine, and a silken poet shirt.
The gloves she wears are thick and tailored, the leather worn but treated, lined inside to keep her from burning when she handles silver or presses her palm to the cold curve of a crucifix. Abby’s seen her slip them on with the same care she once reserved for undressing. Because this control, correction, requires more precision than pleasure ever did.
“You tried to leave me. Again.” Ellie says, voice low and razor-sharp. "How many times does that make, my love?"
"I don't know," Abby says, quiet. She does know, but the number would only serve to upset them both.
Ellie takes a step closer. The mattress dips under the pressure of one knee as she leans over Abby’s restrained form. Her eyes drag over her, slow and clinical, like she’s cataloging damage. The bruises under Abby’s eyes, the hollowness in her cheeks, the faint smear of blood at the corner of her mouth that Ellie hadn’t bothered to wipe away. The rat blood. The filth.
“You really are pathetic,” Ellie murmurs, almost sweetly. “Crawling through alleyways. Feeding like a dog.”
Abby’s mouth works uselessly for a moment before the words come. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, now you’re sorry,” Ellie replies. She leans in, face inches from Abby’s. “Like you were sorry last time and the time before that. Really, Abby, running like we don't belong to each other.”
“We do,” Abby whispers. “I do, I—fuck, Ellie, I just—”
“You just what?” Ellie cuts in. Her tone softens around the edges in the way that makes it worse. That makes it cruel. “You got confused? You forgot what you are? Is that it?”
Abby doesn’t answer.
Ellie’s gloved hand comes up to her face, strokes her cheek with something almost tender, and then trails down to wrap gently around her throat. She doesn’t squeeze yet.
“You’re a vampire,” she says, almost bored. “A predator. And all you’ve done since I gave you this gift is run from it.”
“I hate it,” Abby says, eyes squeezed shut. Her voice breaks around the words. “I hate what I am.”
Ellie laughs. “I know you do. And it's a damn waste.”
The grip on Abby’s throat tightens. There's no pain in the restriction of air, but the way grip is hard enough to start to ache and it makes the breaths she's been forcing herself to take stutter.
“You know it brings me no joy to hurt you,” Ellie says. “But you know, just as well as I do, what you need.”
Abby shakes, eyes still closed, breath trembling.
“Say it,” Ellie hisses, fingers slipping lower, dragging down her sternum. “Say what you always say.”
Abby opens her eyes, glassy and desperate. Her voice is a hoarse whisper, barely audible. “Fix me.”
Ellie smiles, slow and pleased. “Good girl.”
She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out the blade. A compact silver knife, old and sharp, with an ivory handle that catches the low light like bone. She flicks it open with a practiced ease, then holds it up where Abby can see it. Where Abby has to see it.
Abby’s breath stutters.
Ellie’s eyes stay on hers as she brings the blade down. She presses it flat against the inside of Abby’s thigh, just for a second, and Abby hisses through clenched teeth as the silver bites into her skin. Ellie's purpose isn't to cut. It's to burn. Ellie watches the skin go red beneath the metal, watches Abby twitch in the chains.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Ellie coos, the corners of her mouth lifting into a mean smile. “You know better than to move. You’ll only make it worse.”
Then she cuts.
Clean, practiced slashes through the fabric of Abby’s underwear, slicing them away piece by piece. The waistband gives under the blade with a quiet snick, and the cotton peels away from Abby’s skin in ruined curls. The silver brushes her once more as the blade dips lower, grazing along the crease of her hip. Abby moans—more from the pain than anything else—but there’s heat building between her thighs, undeniable now, and Ellie notices.
“Poor thing,” Ellie murmurs as she tosses the shredded scraps to the floor. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
She sets the knife aside on the nightstand, deliberately within reach.
Then she leans in and kisses the angry red mark she left on Abby’s thigh. Her lips are soft. Wet. They drag over scorched flesh with reverence, and Abby chokes on the contradiction. The way it hurts, and the way it heals.
Ellie pauses. Looks down at her, and there’s something dark and proud in her expression. “You’ll need to be strong for me tonight,” she says. “And I know just the thing.”
She rolls up her sleeve and bares her wrist, then opens her mouth and bites. Her fangs sink in without hesitation, and blood wells up quick and dark. She lowers it to Abby’s mouth, lets it drip slowly, deliberately, onto her lips. The first taste is always the hardest to resist. Abby parts her lips without thinking, lets Ellie’s blood coat her tongue, thick and hot and delicious.
“Greedy,” Ellie whispers, and the word feels like it brands her.
“You need this,” she says, voice low and calm, like she’s explaining something to a child. “You need me. My blood is clean. Strong. Better than yours. Because I don’t waste time fighting what I am.”
She strokes Abby’s cheek with the back of her gloved hand as the blood continues to drip.
“I feed. I fuck. I take what I want and I don't let these things haunt me.” Abby knows that's a lie. She's seen the haunted look in Ellie's eyes when she thinks no one is watching, sees the way she fights actively to make herself not care.
She lets the words comfort her anyway.
Abby swallows, and the taste of Ellie spreads through her like wildfire. Her toes curl. Her eyes flutter. It makes her feel sated and starving at the same time.
It’s enough to remind her of the first time. Of the way Ellie’s blood made her see stars. Of the way it bent her to its will.
“Look at you,” Ellie goes on, watching Abby desperately lick at her lips, “choosing to starve. Is it because you know I'll take care of you”
She tilts her head and offers more, her voice darkening. “Drink, Abby. You’re going to need your strength.”
Her free hand slides down between Abby’s legs, fingers dragging through slick heat, not bothering to hide her satisfaction.
“Because I’m not stopping,” Ellie says. “Not until you forget you ever wanted to leave me.”
And Abby, helpless and aching, drinks.
Ellie doesn’t bother wiping her wrist clean when she’s done. She just rolls her sleeve back down, blood still slick along her skin under the cuff. Abby’s mouth is stained with it. Her tongue flicks out to catch the last drop on her lip, and Ellie watches with something close to affection. Or amusement.
Then she moves to the drawer in the nightstand and pulls out a small velvet pouch. She unties it with care, tipping its contents into her palm.
Abby’s breath catches.
It’s a rosary. Old. The beads dulled with age, the crucifix worn smooth where fingers once clutched it in prayer. She recognizes it immediately. It used to sit on her nightstand, back when she still slept like a person. Back when she believed in salvation. The sight of it now. Here, in Ellie’s hands, sends a jolt through her. Something like shame. Something like longing.
“You kept it,” she whispers.
“Of course I did,” Ellie replies. “I remember you, pink and warm. You told me I'd be your damnation.”
She steps closer, letting the beads slide through her fingers like she’s weighing their worth.
“You were right, by the way.”
Ellie climbs onto the bed and straddles Abby’s hips, her gloved hands dragging up Abby’s ribs, stopping just under her breasts. She leans forward, lets the beads dangle across Abby’s chest before trailing them lower, slow and deliberate, until the crucifix rests just above the soft, wet heat between her legs.
“You used to pray with this,” Ellie says softly. “Now it’s the only thing keeping you from coming.”
Abby’s hips jerk, the chain of the rosary catching on her sensitive skin. The silver stings. Just barely, but enough.
“Please,” Abby breathes.
Ellie shushes her, kissing the corner of her mouth like they’re lovers in the old-fashioned sense. Her fingers press between Abby’s thighs again, stroking slowly, deliberately, slipping through slick folds and circling her clit with maddening precision.
“I’ll let you come,” Ellie murmurs. “Eventually. But only when I think you deserve it.”
She brings her mouth to Abby’s ear. “You’ve been bad, after all. Trying to run. Starving yourself. Saying ugly things about the gift I gave you.”
Abby groans, arching into the touch, helpless.
Ellie’s fingers speed up. It's enough to push her closer and then she's stopping. She reaches between them, places the cool weight of the crucifix flush against Abby’s inner thigh and presses down.
The burn is immediate.
Abby gasps, hips twitching, mouth falling open as the silver sears into her flesh. It’s not enough to maim or scar, but there's no denying it. And it’s good. It hurts in a way that cuts through the numbness. It hurts like feeling.
Her eyes roll back. Her mouth drops open. She moans, wrecked and grateful, voice cracking around it.
“That’s right,” Ellie says, voice syrup-slow and cruel. “You like it. My good little monster.”
Abby nods, or tries to. She’s panting now, her face flushed with the false heat of Ellie’s blood still rushing through her. Her hands pull at the chains, wrists aching from where she’s been testing the limits. There’s blood at the corners of her eyes—thin rivulets streaking down her cheeks.
Her tears. Blood.
“Oh,” Ellie coos, brushing a gloved thumb along Abby’s jaw. “What pretty tears.”
She leans in and licks one tear off her face, her tongue slow and deliberate. Abby chokes on a sob, another broken noise tearing out of her chest.
“Say you’re sorry,” Ellie tells her, sliding two fingers inside her without warning, the stretch deep and perfect.
“I’m sorry,” Abby gasps. “Ellie, I’m—I’m sorry, I swear, please.”
Ellie curls her fingers and presses her palm against Abby’s clit, grinding down with cruel precision.
“Say you need it.”
“I need it. I need you! fuck, I—”
“Say you’ll never leave me again.”
“I won’t! I won’t, I swear, please don’t stop—”
Ellie kisses her hard, swallows her cries, presses the crucifix into her thigh again as she fucks her harder. Abby’s body arches off the bed, trembling, desperate. She's shaking, crying, bleeding. Her cunt clenches around Ellie’s fingers and she teeters right there on the edge.
“Not yet,” Ellie whispers, pulling back just enough to deny her.
Abby sobs.
“I said not yet,” Ellie repeats, dragging her fingers out so slowly it makes Abby's whole body seize. “You’ll come when I let you. And not a second before.”
Ellie settles between Abby’s thighs like she belongs there.
Because she does.
She drags the chain of the rosary aside with one finger, letting it fall forgotten onto the sheets, and then leans in close—close enough that Abby can feel her breath fan across her soaked cunt.
Ellie’s gloved hands grip her thighs, spreading them wide and pressing them flat to the bed, revealing every trembling inch of her. The scent of blood and arousal clings to the air.
“Look at you,” Ellie says, voice soaked in satisfaction. “So fucking messy. You’ve ruined my sheets.”
Abby whimpers, twitching against the hold, legs trembling.
Then Ellie leans in and bites.
Sharp, deep, and deliberate—right into the soft flesh of Abby’s inner thigh. Her fangs sink in, and Abby lets out a strangled moan, body arching off the bed. She’s not just marking her. She’s claiming her.
Again and again, she sinks her teeth in low, below the old cross burn, until the skin is mottled with red, with blood, with Ellie. Abby jerks against the chains, but Ellie holds her down easily, only releasing her bite when she’s sure it’s going to last a while.
“Ellie, please,” Abby gasps, hips rolling, searching for contact. “Fuck. I love you so much, I need you. I'll never leave again, I promise.”
Ellie hums into her skin, dragging her tongue through the shallow bite marks. “That's all you had to say,” she mutters.
Then she dips lower.
Ellie’s mouth finds Abby's pussy like it’s something she’s owed. Her tongue is hot, practiced, filthy. She licks broad and slow at first, savoring it, drinking in every broken sound Abby makes, every twitch and writhe of her hips. Then she locks onto her clit and sucks, and Abby keens, head thrown back, tears still streaming crimson from the corners of her eyes.
Ellie eats her in the way only a creature of lust and consumption can.
Her tongue works fast and ruthless, the way she knows Abby can’t take without unraveling, and her hands hold Abby’s thighs open as her mouth pushes her closer and closer to the edge.
Abby sobs. Her hips buck. Her chains rattle.
And then, finally, Ellie pulls back just enough to speak, her mouth slick with blood and slick, her lips shining. “Come for me,” she says. “Let it all go.”
The words slam into Abby like a command from God.
Her whole body goes tight, thighs trembling as her orgasm rips through her with punishing force. The chains groan against the frame—then snap, the screws yanked clean from the headboard as her arms fly down on instinct, hands tangling in Ellie’s hair, keeping her there.
She grinds helplessly against Ellie’s mouth, crying out wordless, broken sounds, riding it out with the full weight of the blood and heat and pain still buzzing through her body.
Ellie doesn’t pull away. Not even when Abby screams or tries pitifully to buck her off. She stays until Abby’s body goes slack, hands falling from her hair, fingers twitching.
And only then does she lift her head, licking her lips with obscene satisfaction, eyes glowing in the low light.
“Atta girl,” Ellie says. “Now you remember who you belong to.”
After, Ellie peels off her gloves with slow, deliberate movements. She drops them on the floor like they’re nothing, like she didn’t just use them to break Abby into pieces. Her hand comes up to stroke Abby’s cheek, her fingers now bare and cool, smearing the bloodstained tears still clinging to her skin.
“Hey,” she says gently. Like they’re just two normal lovers in bed. In another life, Abby would like to think that's all they are.
Abby turns her face into the touch. Her limbs feel distant, heavy. She’s limp on the sheets, chest rising and falling in shallow little gulps. Her thighs are still trembling. Her skin aches everywhere Ellie’s teeth and that cross touched her. She feels ruined. She feels alive. She feels warm.
Ellie leans down and kisses her. Not like earlier. This one is sweet. Chaste. A mockery of softness. Abby kisses her back, because what else is she supposed to do?
“I’ll clean you up in a minute,” Ellie murmurs against her mouth, then nuzzles close. “You did so good for me.”
Abby closes her eyes. She lets herself breathe in the scent of Ellie’s skin: smoke, copper, some musky scent, and tries to believe this is love. That this isn’t just part of the cycle.
Because tomorrow, they’ll be who they usually are: fierce and in sync, like some tragic epic. Ellie will wrap her arms around her in the bath. She’ll bite her gently and make her laugh. Abby will read to her in the garden while the moon cuts through the dark like glass. She’ll kiss Ellie's face and tell her she’s beautiful. They’ll be great lovers again.
For a while.
Maybe weeks, maybe months. Sometimes, it even stretches into years. But always, eventually, it slips. The hunger. The power. The way Ellie’s love turns sharp around the edges.
They’ll fight. And when it’s bad, it’s biblical. Fangs, claws, shouts through cracked walls. Then silence. And Abby will end up back here, in a ruined bed, bleeding and begging, wondering why it still feels like devotion.
But not tonight.
Tonight, Ellie wraps her arms around her like a cradle. She kisses her forehead and hums something tuneless. And Abby clings to the moment like it’s the last warm thing on Earth.
“You know what I think would make you feel better?” Ellie asks, voice soft, playful.
Abby blinks slowly, already halfway lulled into sleep. “What?”
Inho: I stole this journal from Gihun's room in the Pink Motel
Pink Guard:
Inho: It's fine, he was still sleeping when I snuck in, don't worry about it
Pink Guard:
Inho: Anyway. Let's look for important information that will help me destroy him. I'll read from a recent entry. It says, "I haven't slept in days. It all has to do with the dreams. Dreams of him. The man who runs the Games. The man in the mask."
Pink Guard:
Inho: That's me! They must be sexy dreams. "He reminds me of everyone I lost and every drop of blood spilled and every way I failed. They're not dreams--they're nightmares. He haunts me day and night. Every time I close my eyes."
